Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Among the many books from my childhood that I have kept and treasured all these years are books by Alexander Key, such as The Forgotten Door, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return From Witch Mountain and The Sword of Aradel. I also have fond memories of the Witch Mountain movies. While Key often shows children fleeing villains and in danger, there is always a happy ending with children returning home and winning out over their enemies. He also portrayed children with ESP and from other worlds. The underlying message of these books I think was that the future belonged to the children and that if adults listened to children, the world would be a better place. Any child would like the idea they could make a difference (smile).

Recently, I rather promised Jen Robinson that I would do a post on Alexander Key, after finding we both fondly remembered his book, The Forgotten Door. I started digging for information on him in order to shape my post. To my surprise, no one seems to have written any scholarly articles or dissertations about Key and his work. He has a biographical entry in Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers, 3rd edition (1991) and Contemporary Authors Online (2008).

The fan website Thru the Forgotten Door gives a pretty fair biography of Key. Warning, a lot of the links at that website do not work but it does have some interesting information. As a native Chicagoan, I was astounded to find that Key lived in Chicago. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later taught at the Studio School of Art, also in Chicago. He started out as an illustrator and I decided to put together as full a bibliography as possible since neither the fan website nor the official biographies list all of Key's own books or those he illustrated. I used the public version of WorldCat and ViaLibri to locate books and images of book covers. My question was how he managed to support himself with the relatively few books he was credited with having written. Now that I've put together this detailed bibliography (see below) and learned that he also wrote and illustrated for various magazines, I suspect he kept extremely busy and that there are other books he illustrated that have not yet been identified.

He wrote and illustrated books set in Florida, where he grew up and returned to live for many years, and in North Carolina, where he later moved, and in Alabama, where he also lived at one time. He had a strong sense of region and nature, as shown by the illustrations and covers I have found. One of the biographies mentions that he also painted professionally and that his work was in private collections. I have been unable to find visual images of his paintings (wistful sigh). I really love his illustrations and may track down copies of these books for my collection. I wonder why, post 1967, he did not illustrate any more books that I have discovered? I would have liked to see his illustrations for the Witch Mountain books, for example.

Exploring the Internet has shown me that many people share my love for Alexander Key's books and enjoyed the movies based on his books. There were even translations to other languages of some of his books and many went into multiple editions. Another Witch Mountain movie, Race to Witch Mountain is scheduled to be released March of 2009. I hope it will provoke a revival of interest in Alexander Key.

For that matter, why doesn't some academic scholar do a paper or book on Key? The materials are out there as I have tried to indicate, and he had a very interesting career as an illustrator and author. The de Grummond Collection just posted announcements of fellowships available for research in their collections, which include Key's papers.

The bibliography is organized, first by books he illustrated, and then by books he wrote, all listed under year of publication so you can get a sense of how his career developed. Having lived in Chicago for some years, it is understandable that his earliest publishers were Chicago publishers and he seems to have maintained ties to the Chicago publishing community.

Books illustrated by him:

1925:

Baker, Rannie Belle. In the light of myth; selections from the world’s myths, compiled and interpreted by Rannie B. Baker...Art selection by Ruth C. Stebbins. Illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago & New York: Row, Peterson & Company, 1925. Reportedly the first book he ever illustrated, at the age of 19, although since he was born in 1904, perhaps the book's publication was delayed? Supposedly he was paid $900 for the illustrations.

The book of dragons. Selected and edited by O. Muiriel Fuller. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: R.M. McBride, 1931. Reprinted by Dover in 2001 (that cover is shown here).

1932:

Manning, Clarence Augustus. Marko, the king’s son, hero of the Serbs. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: R.M. McBride, 1932. A scanned version is available online. To my surprise, I have a copy of this book that I picked up years ago without realizing that the illustrator was Alexander Key!

Lyback, Johanna R. M. Indian legends of the great West. Color illustrations and map ornamentation by Dick West. Other illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1963.

Books by Alexander Key:

1930:

Key, Alexander. The red eagle: being the adventurous tale of two young flyers. Story & pictures by Alexander Key. New York: P.F. Volland, 1930. Reprinted in 1930 and 1935 by the Wise-Parslow Company, New York.

1936:

Key, Alexander. Liberty or death: the narrative of William Dunbar, partisan. Presented in story and picture, by Alexander Key. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1936.

1938:

Parents’ Institute (New York, N.Y.). Best stories for boys and girls: pages of stories selected by the editors of “The Parents’ Magazine.” New York: Parents’ Institute, 1938. Includes the story: “Caroliny trail, by Alexander Key” from the magazine, Story Parade, which had been recently published.

1939:

Argosy, v. 295, no. 2. New York: Frank A. Munsey, December 2, 1939. Contains a story by Alexander Key: “Black Bayou--short novelet”, Stranger, don’t fear the whisper of the ’Glades tonight. Morning will bring the sun, and a girl’s song, and the promise of a safe Destiny, p. 72. Apparently some other issues of Argosy during the 1930s contained other stories by him.

1941:

Key, Alexander. With Daniel Boone on the Caroliny trail. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia [etc.]: The John C. Winston Company, 1941.

Key, Alexander. The wrath and the wind, a novel. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949. An adult novel. Translated into Spanish in 1950 as La ira y el viento. I posted here the Popular Library paperback cover because it's such a cheesy one!

Key, Alexander. Island of escape. Toronto, Ontario: Harlequin Books, 1952. Harlequin book 237. Not clear if this is a romance or adult novel. In the early years Harlequin published non-romances as well.

Key, Alexander. The forgotten door. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965. Published by Scholastic in paperback in the same year and still in print. Translated into Chinese in 1973 as Qi yi de men and into German in 1975 as Die Tür zu einer anderen Welt. It was made into a 1966 tv series with 7 episodes.

Key, Alexander. Return from Witch Mountain, by Alexander Key based upon Walt Disney Productions’ motion picture. Screenplay written by Malcolm Marmorstein, based upon characters created by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978. The 1979 London edition claims this was actually written by Martin Mellet. The book was written as a companion to the Walt Disney Productions film which was released in 1978. See the entry on Wikipedia.

1979:

Key, Alexander. The case of the vanishing boy. New York: Pocket Books, 1979. This appears to only have been printed in a paperback edition.

Play adaptations:

Falls, Gregory A. The forgotten door, adapted for stage by Gregory A. Falls from the book by Alexander Key. New Orleans, La.: Anchorage Press, 1982.

Movie adaptations:

Mirai shōnen Konan, gensaku, Aregusandā Kei, enshutsu, Miyazaki Hayao. Tōkyō: Tokuma Shoten, 1997. A anime-style book adaptation of Miyazaki’s anime tv series which was based on Key's The Incredible Tide. Information on the anime tv series can be found here.

Nancy Arruda presents a treasure trove of Recycled Books posted at Bees Knees Reads that she found at book sales. I'm wistfully envious. I'd love to have copies of those books in my own collection.

Daniel Kretschmer presents changing images of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland posted at Alice's Adventures in Art at vince's ear, saying, "We all know and love the literature of Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland. Let's not neglect the hundreds of wonderful illustrators who brought Alice to life."

Crissa-Jean Chappell presents total constant order - I'm in the Miami Herald! posted at Crissa, saying, "Check out this Miami Herald interview and mini documentary video on my blog...in which I talk about turning the nervous energy from OCD into writing and positive energy...and a behind the scenes glimpse into my young adult novel, Total Constant Order."

About this Blog

I will be posting occasional posts on the history of children's literature and old children's books, from the Middle Ages to the present day from Europe, England and America. Yes, children's books are that old and I want to share them with you. The links above are to resources on the Web for learning more about the history of children's literature. Feel free to comment and ask questions and I'll answer them as best as I can.

About Me

I'm a rare book librarian and a specialist in the history of children's literature. I kept all my children's books from my childhood and kept collecting more. I grew up back when you could still find wonderful old books in used bookstores quite cheaply so my collection ranges from 1800 to the present and if I ever get it unpacked, there probably are over 10,000 children's books. Which doesn't count all the other books in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical novels, and history of children's literature.... I'm also a genealogist who has been collecting family stories and research for over forty years.